Washington, D.C. – Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva today released the following statement on the Senate Republican filibuster of a bill to grant veterans in-state college tuition, provide fertility treatments for wounded troops and extend other health, education and job-training benefits to eligible veterans:

“Veterans don’t deserve lectures about fiscal austerity. They certainly don’t deserve to have their needs held hostage by ideologues with no new ideas. This is not the leadership they signed up for and it’s not what the American people want. A minority of conservative activists filibustered a popular, necessary bill and then tried to blame Democrats for not giving them a vote they wanted on an unrelated bit of saber-rattling against Iran. That’s really all you need to know about what happened today. The rest is window dressing.”